Chapter 1, officers mess
Scarlet, Cennet, Hadrian and Vormav
The officer’s mess is on deck 4 beneath the conference room, it is a large, sprawling place, divided by panelled walls into various rooms and alcoves and has a low ceiling, warm lighting and plush carpets, except in the restaurant and dance areas, to give an air of cosiness and intimacy. All the furniture in the officer’s mess is antique, but maintained and kept in good repair by the craftsmen in the artisan workshops.
The ‘Captain’s Table’, is a restaurant where officers go if they want something a bit special and don’t mind paying for it, here the floor is polished parquet in geometric patterns.
There are three bars here, the ‘Traders’ bar is the largest and serves as a general facility for the whole place, it features auto dispensers at one end and is mostly staffed by servitors.
The Explorer’s’ bar is situated in the dance area, sonically screened from the rest of the facility, this place has a suspended, hard wood floor and a variety music is played here, mostly classical, waltz and foxtrot are popular, but interspersed with the occasional hymn, just to keep people grounded. On this dance floor and the couches and tables around it, officers can let their hair down a bit, though there is usually a member of the ecclesiarch stationed here to keep an eye on things.
At the far end of the facility is the ‘Conquest' bar. Staffed by people and serving a better quality of liquor, this area is reserved for the senior officers by an unspoken rule.
Most officers who are not on watch have gathered in the mess to watch the ceremony taking place on the planet below and it has been an impressive sceptical. The investiture of a new Rogue Trader is the biggest thing that has ever happened on this place and they have pulled out all the stops. There have been many hours of service in the packed cathedral, speeches, parade through streets crammed with cheering people, more speeches, a presentation, with speeches and a grand reception followed by more speeches, now, they watch as their new, and officially proclaimed Rogue Trader and Lady Captain endures one final speech and climes aboard her gun cutter, she’ll be back in about fifty minuets. In fact, as they watch, the nixie displays above all three bars light up with glowing numbers that match those on a similar but larger display on the bridge, and begins a count down to the Lady Captains arrival.
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